Donut or Pie?

Indeed you are as insightful and correct as ever. The snooker or pool hall is a breeding ground for low level hoodlums and criminal activity. Something to do with providing men too young to drink a place to hang out and smoke, I have always thought. In fact, if such premises were to keep a signing-in book, it would read as a veritable who's who of minor street criminals. Such activity, left unchecked, could easily develop into capers such as bank robberies and grand larceny.

Incidentally, the charge of larceny contains some interestingly subtle clauses, for example (this is a classic example taken from an old law book which resides in my library)

'...the thief must not only gain dominion over the property he must move it from its original position. The slightest movement, a hair's breadth, is sufficient. However, the entirety of the property must be moved. As one commentator noted critically this requirement is the difference between rotating a doughnut (larceny) and rotating a pie (not larceny), as all of the donut is moved through rotation while the pie's exact center remains in the same place when rotated.'

This leads me to ask the following metaphorical question - is Searly rotating a donut or a pie? I have been digging into his past for clues and have theorised the following: Searly grew up in the NE corner of America, most likely Milwaukee of Pennsylvania (going by teenage poetry submissions). Both of these locations border on the Great Lakes; either side, in fact. Searly probably gained knowledge of the lakeshores and surrounding areas through family picnics and camping trips during his childhood.

My guess is that his father was a military man who favoured the outdoors and tried to pass this prediliction on to his son. Military fathers are known for their strictness and desire to see their offspring suceed along pre-determined paths. My guess is that Searly went to University in line with his parents wishes, but once away from their immediate presence, he began to drift into fringe circles and most likely dropped out to pursue his own aims, but kept in contact with academic social circles. Became involved in some kind of political network and oversaw operations involving fabric experiments in some capacity, either for the government or an independent subversive group. His knowledge of the local area and the Great Lakes soon made him a great asset to, and central figure in, the group.

His role would seem to be more strategic than operational, possibly becoming so after the incident with the Buick in Maine causing a scare that he may have gone too 'overground' and was in danger of being discovered. Since then, he appears to be more or less invisible, yet is present in everything. He is like the air pockets between the fibres of a chunky home-knit.This of course, is all just my own speculation based on a re-examination of my early case notes in light of post-Boston revelations. It should also be noted here that I failed to locate the Bungalow registered to Searly on the SE edge of Boston, so am no closer to revealing what he is building in there.

Sir Lee

I have spent several nights under the angle poise. The bulb has stayed warm into the small hours. My semiotic investigations have picked up a few leads. Sir Lee Stack, an imperialist in Sudan, was assassinated by Egyptian anti-imperialists while in Cairo (home of the obelisks stolen by the imperial west as ‘papal magnets’ for various energies to be absorbed and/or perhaps transmitted). That’s Lee Stack.

Stack Lee, on the other hand, is a sea stack, home of a large population of gannets, as part of the archipelago of St. Kilda, once home to an indigenous population of large toed gannet-eaters off the north-western seaboard of UK/Europe. Stack (R) Lee was also immortalised in a traditional American song, later becoming ‘Stagger’ Lee, as reimagined by Nick Cave in a murder ballad. (Stack Lee and Lee Stack thus both being involved in murder, the former the murderer, the latter the murdered.)

This all leads me to think that Searly was involved on the side of the military-industrial complex in geo-beacon work, but may have been silenced in some way, if not literally killed, by the anti-establishment soft core group. This may have been the event (in Maine?) which sent the soft core into hiding. It also leads me to believe that the soft model of Michigan was not (or not only) a monument, but a hidden enclave – a hiding place for a fragmentary remnant people. Dressed in floral print.

All just theory in the warm glow of angle poise… Any word on Melody Nelson or from the film and media department?

North East

There seems to be an amalgamation of evidence in the northeastern corner of the american continent. is this due to the atlantic seaboard providing ports accessible from the transatlantic european shipping lanes? it would make sense, given the anglo-european involvement already uncovered.

This all has the effect of making more intrigued by the Buick wreck in Maine - it's just up the road from Boston, but isn't really on the way to anywhere in a northerly direction. However, it would be somewhere someone may pass through if they were going from, say, a northeastern shipping port such as eastport or calais, or even halifax, nova scotia to somewhere near the canadian borderline, such as the great lakes.

there are so many coastal towns in the nova scotia region which borrow heavily from british naming conventions; st. andrews, digby, yarmouth, chester, bedford, guysborough, truro, halifax. i am unsure if this is of significance or not?

Reply to Kojak asa400

A mid-point is a mid-point, and to me, all three which you propose seem equally valid. The idea of a euclidian mid-point is extremely interesting, given that we have already been told that a certain part of the Soft Michigan project involved moving things underground - hollowed mountains, submerged cities etc. Could it be that a city was submerged for the purpose of being utilized as a hard-to-find (possibly unfindable) operational centre? This deserves deeper investigation, literally.

I have further developments relating to other parts of the case. According to the police forensics report on the Buick which was found crashed in Maine, several types of wool fibres were recovered from the scene, including thirty-one different shades of Merino wool. Now, even a station wagon at maximum occupancy would not allow for this amount of different colours being accounted for by passenger clothing, even if they were all wearing odd socks. It would seem that the Buick had been used as a delivery/transportation vehicle by the Michigan core group for some time.

We are fortunate to have this information as, due to the unofficial nature of our investigations and the way we operate, we do not have approved access for police files. However, one of my underground contacts is able to bribe a certain law enforcement official in his neighbourhood whom he holds sensitive information on. In order to protect my contact, he must remain unnamed at this time. Suffice to say, his inquisitive nature and loyalties to our cause are a great asset. As my old mentor Bob Palindrome used to say, 'being a detective is not something you do; it is something you are'.

The Stitcher

Note to 'The Stitcher':

It is believed that Jose de Leon was involved in the research wing of Project 31; his reason for attending the Michigan boating trade fair being investigations into principles of buoyancy and large-scale cargo transportation. A sales rep who was present at the fair spoke to one of our investigators under condition of anonymity. He recalled a man of short stature with an out of town accent inquiring about large-scale inflation methods who referred to something possibly called the 'Michigan Flotilla'. The short man apparently displayed a physical nervousness which betrayed his calm eyes and wanted to know how to 'float something the size of a city'.

Whether he was an active member of the project or the suspected inside man working for the feds is as yet undetermined but the theory has been raised that he may have been the link between Pinsk, James Long and/or Vermott. The current leading theory is that 'Vermott' may be a codename for de Leon, who was assigned the task of silencing Pinsk by executing a staged crash in Maine for which James Long was made to look responsible. However, it could be that this theory is flawed and de Leon and Vermott are separate entities, either of which could have been an insider or an outsider with regard to Project 31.

Note from 'The Stitcher':

On 15 June 05 (before the disappearance of the soft Michigan core group), a mysterious letter was sent to a part-time Maryland woodland ranger by the name of Phipps. This letter was passed to a friend of Phipps, who herself was acquainted with the sister of a Baltimore man. This Baltimore man heard of our investigations after researching the subject of the letter online, and obtained a transcript of the letter for our researchers. It contains anonymous allegations claiming to be from a military source, that pertain to an alleged conversation between a military man and an Englishman known only as ‘Ike’. The military man, in some excitation, suggested that a city on a lake could be bettered by putting a city under a lake. He outlined a plan of individual vats which he called suspension chambers. The other man (‘Ike’) declared: ‘It is happening again…’ The military man, it is claimed, had a map on his wall of the US, with rings around 4 of the Great Lakes. A photocopied photographic image of this map accompanied the letter.

Note to Warren Leno

ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE from a Coloradoan known only as 'Pinsk' outlines further possible details of Project 31. As a specialist in pressurized storage facilities and the go-to man in the mid-south-west for sub-zero fluid delivery systems, he was often called on as a consultant by the US military and associated intelligence corps to advise on a narrowly defined field of operational activity. 'Pinsk' became a vauable military asset, assisting them for several years, even eventually coming to have a permanently reserved parking space at a govt. base in the Rockies. In time he became so trusted that he could roam the base freely and was never asked to show an ID at internal checkpoints.

He was of course sworn to secrecy on all matters, but a traffic accident involving a Buick in Maine (which some theorists believe was a botched assasination attempt by the same black op agencies who had recruited him, their motive being the fear that he had somehow gained access to secret operational files and codestrings) left him horrifically injured and no longer able to work. He underwent intense reconstructive surgery and made a recovery beyond doctors' expectations. However, due to the severity of his injuries and subsequent surgery, he was physically unrecognisable from his former self, with vastly different facial topography and further disfigurements including distorted fingerprints. Pinsk basically became an Unknown Individual, unrecognisable, untraceable. In light of the accident and its suspected perpetrators, Pinsk decided it was in his best interests to remain an unkown, especially given that he had actually gained access to far more information than his former unofficial employees suspected.

One such clasified area of intelligence he was aware of was a Project 31. He believes that the basis of said project was to geographically relocate major US cities as a measure to avoid terrorist attacks. Methods proposed included making inflatable versions of landmarks which would discreetly replace statues, buildings, streets and eventually whole towns. the plan was to keep this secret from the general American populace as well as overseas threats. By doing it gradually and quietly in the night, the theory went, nobody would notice. Some parties, particularly a Harry Owl, voiced concerns that the idea was too far-fetched, but in the end an agreement was made to test the theory by trying to replace one state with an inflatable version of itself then, if successful, the operation would be rolled out nationally. 'Pinsk' belives that Michigan state was selected as the test area after a certain Mr de Leon had visited a boating supplies tradefair there and declared it the kind of state where you could get away with that kind of thing.

'Pinsk''s location and real identity are currently unknown, but in response to being quizzed on where the original towns were to be stored once replaced by inflatable effigies, he was heard to utter the words 'hollowed mountains' before silently slipping away into the shadows of the Pittsburg night.

In Reply

Good sleuthing from ms Kingsbury P.I. BA Phil.
The big fish is indeed in the water.

I note the mention of a certain Jack Vandeloo of Ottawa, and a Jose de Leon, both also ketch ‘enthusiasts’ who many investigators considered likely to be involved in the notorious quota fraud around the Halifax, Novia Scotia bay area in the early 1990’s. The same faces came up again several years later in the Baton Rouge area, after an interim period without any trace as to their whereabouts or activities. In Florida, they were suspected (but later released without charge) in the case of the poaching of young crocodiles to supply private zoos in Mexico. A certain Mr ‘Vermott’ was later to be charged and then convicted of a lesser charge associated with this same crime.

It is unknown whether Vermott was an associate of the other two, or if he was framed by them or others, or whether Vandeloo and de Leon were wholly innocent of the Florida accusations. Vermott was released early and subsequently has been untraced. An ex-work colleague from the Manatee Boat Supplies Company claim he had ‘always talked of visiting Mexico’. Vermott has no known associations with R Searley/Surley/Searly, however a Pasadena phone directory belonging to a James Long was found close to the wreckage of a Buick stationwagon in Maine. In this directory, the name of an R Searle is circled in blue ink with the word Vermouth under it followed by a question mark. Theories have been made that Vermott was an alias, however my contacts feel a more likely explanation is that Vermott used Searle as an alias, intending to pose as Searly, but based on incomplete or incorrect personal information. This supports the theory that both existed and did not know each other directly. Whether foul play can be suspected in the Buick incident, and whether this was conducted by Vermott to silence Long, is unknown.